A professor at Texas A&M University gave a failing course grade to many students in his class after he ran their final assignments through ChatGPT to check for cheating.
Dr. Jared Mumm copy and pasted the last three assignments submitted by students into ChatGPT to see if the artificial intelligence system would claim writing them, according to an email posted to Reddit that was allegedly sent by the professor. If Mumm found a match, he issued a zero as the final grade to the corresponding student.
Many of the students who received a zero were graduating seniors and allegedly did not receive their diploma as a result of receiving a failing course grade, despite already participating in graduation ceremonies.
Mumm offered the class the chance to re-do the assignment to avoid a failing grade.
A follow-up post on Reddit claimed several students emailed Mumm with time stamps from their assignment in Google Docs to show they had not used ChatGPT, but Mumm allegedly did not accept their proof.
Texas A&M confirmed the incident, saying “The professor in question is working individually with a few students regarding their last written assignments." The university later added, ""No students failed the class or were barred from graduating as a result of this issue."
Experts have previously said ChatGPT cannot detect material composed by AI or itself, highlighting previous instances where ChatCPT falsely claimed writing something and even provided factually inaccurate or misleading information.